Successful federal contractors know what they do well and, more importantly, what they do not do well. They have a succinct description of what they sell and how it solves problems for the government.
Don’t bore your potential customers with a generic statement that could describe anyone in your industry. Make it a compelling read that clearly describes what you do and makes it easy for the client to see how what you offer will fit into their mission.
The federal government represents the largest marketplace in the world buying just about every product and service you can imagine. The possibilities for an entrepreneur are endless. Unfortunately for newcomers, the government prefers vendors with a track record and not new ones and almost any federal market segment has someone occupying it that has that work history. To beat out those incumbents the newcomer needs to understand clearly their value to buyers and how they are different from the other options.
There are 3 questions that are critical to developing a strategy.
In this article, I describe a brilliant framework for getting potential clients to open up and share what is on thier minds, so you can then figure out how to solve thier problem.
Getting into the federal contracting space takes clear thinking and patience to succeed. This post is about how to set up the staff and infrastructure to have the capacity to succeed.
How do you know if you are ready to make the plunge into federal contracting?
In my 7 years as a business development consultant, I have had the pleasure of meeting owners of companies of different sizes, shapes, and offerings. When they ask me if they should you get into federal contracting, I bring up a few facts.
Here is the challenge: You have found a federal decision-maker or key partner that can help you win that next contract. No one responds to my emails. My voice mail messages go into a black hole! How do you get their attention without becoming a pest or losing your dignity in the process?
The data that are available to you about what your target agency buys; how, when, from whom they buy it is remarkable. If you are not tapping into these data to make business development decisions, you at a disadvantage because your competitors DO use them.
You have a lot on your plate. You’ve got projects to staff, client review meetings and making sure you get paid and meet payroll. Who has time to market your name and get your company noticed? You do! Here are 4 ideas to think about.
It’s no longer enough to respond to an RFP with a compliant proposal. Unless you have actively involved yourself in helping the buyer shape that RFP, the chances are good that your compliant proposal will be nothing but answers to questions that were written by two or three of your competitors.
As we move from the pedal to the metal period of proposal writing of the 4th quarter of the federal sales cycle into a more methodical marketing plan for Q1, we want to figure out where to focus limited marketing resources. We don’t want a strategy that spreads out over a too large target and neither do we want to limit the number of opportunities that we focus on. Photography offers a good metaphor for this process.